Introducing the SAP Business Technology Platform

The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is a technological innovation platform designed for SAP applications to combine data and analytics, AI, application development, automation and integration into a single, cohesive ecosystem.

BTP is SAP’s integration and application development platform for SAP clients, who want to extend their S/4 system. It is based on Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes technologies.

We also recommend reading the full article on the SAP Community blog site.

What is IBM Instana and how does it relate to observability?

IBM Instana™ Observability is a powerful solution for incident prevention and observability in the dynamic and complex realm of cloud environments. Instana Observability outperforms traditional application performance monitoring (APM) tools with one-second granularity and notifications delivered within three seconds. This solution extends observability to a wide range of roles, including DevOps, SRE, platform engineering, ITOps and development. The solution gives users contextual information so that they can quickly access insights without struggling with data and application monitoring. 

The key components of Instana are host agents and agent sensors deployed on platforms like IBM Cloud®, AWS, and Azure. The components gather, consolidate, and transmit detailed monitoring data to the Instana backend.

Key features of IBM Instana Observability

• Comprehensive observability
• Intelligent automation
• Swift remediation and security
• Enhanced performance and user experience

You can find out more about the benefits of IBM Instana here.

Why SAP BTP + IBM Instana?

Real-time monitoring is vital for SAP BTP cloud-native applications. IBM® Instana helps to ensure proactive issue detection, performance optimization, scalability, efficient incident response and adherence to security and compliance requirements for SAP BTP cloud-native applications.

Supported cloud platforms with IBM Instana

IBM Instana supports IBM Cloud, AWS, Azure and SAP. You can find a complete list of supported technologies for IBM Instana on this page.

Currently, Instana supports SAP BTP Kyma cluster monitoring. The BTP Cloud Foundry monitoring will be available in a future release.

Overview of IBM Instana and its capabilities in the SAP BTP environment

IBM Instana provides real-time monitoring and observability for SAP BTP applications. Key capabilities include: 

• Full-stack observability: Monitors the entire SAP BTP stack, including application performance, microservices, databases, and containers. 
• Auto-discovery and dependency mapping: Automatically discovers and maps services and their interdependencies. 
• Real-time performance monitoring: Monitors key metrics in real time to detect anomalies and optimize performance. 
• AI-powered insights and root cause analysis: Uses AI to provide intelligent insights and identify root causes of performance issues. 
• Integration and extensibility: Integrates with other monitoring tools and supports a wide range of technologies. 
• Automation and remediation: Offers smart alerts, automatic event correlation, and proactive issue resolution.  

Exploring the concept of SAP BTP cloud-native applications with IBM Instana 

SAP BTP cloud-native applications, built using cloud-native principles like microservices architecture and DevOps practices, incorporate Java Spring Boot frameworks and use HTTP clients for seamless integration with external services. These applications use cloud services, container orchestration, and prioritize scalability and resilience. See the below diagram for the reference:

The Instana agent is installed within the SAP BTP account, enabling monitoring of various applications such as node.js, Python, Java Spring Boot and even the S/4 HANA Cloud Database. Instana effectively monitors these microservices applications, providing visibility into their output and facilitating monitoring through the Instana dashboard. 

SAP BTP Kyma

SAP BTP’s Kyma runtime is a managed Kubernetes runtime that uses the open-source project Kyma. This cloud-native approach offers several benefits, including improved flexibility, scalability and cost effectiveness. Kyma’s modular design enables users to select and customize modules based on their specific business needs. Modules can be enabled or disabled as required, giving users control over the infrastructure expenses associated with their chosen modules.

Kyma and Docker simplify application deployment. A JAR/TAR file is generated after the compilation of the SAP BTP Cloud application. This file is then used to create a Docker image using a Dockerfile. The compiled version of the application is included in the Docker image, which is then pushed to a Kubernetes cluster. Consequently, the BTP application is deployed and operational within the cluster.

Enhance the SAP BTP with IBM Instana

IBM Instana provides real-time analytics, a crucial technology that enhances the functioning of SAP BTP’s cloud-native applications. By utilizing advanced analytics and AI, Instana enables real-time monitoring, proactive issue diagnosis, and speedy performance optimization.